The fog of war shrouds every battlefield, but the First World War -- which introduced battle on a scale unimaginable at the time -- also produced oddities on a scale little-known beforehand.
British soldiers claimed to have seen angels fighting on their side at a critical juncture early in the war.
Battles in which hundreds of thousands of men vanished with no known graves produced ghost stories and sad myths. Most have long been forgotten. But one, involving a Canadian, lives on almost eight decades later.
This legend of atrocity might long since have been relegated to the file of might-have-beens, except for a haunting, bronze sculpture in the Canadian War Museum, a work that for 50 years was stashed out of sight under orders from the Defence Department.
The small bas-relief, less than one metre square, is in a primitive style but is riveting in its grotesque subject matter.
There, frozen in metal, a Canadian soldier hangs crucified to a wall, while German soldiers mock his plight.
The sculpture, titled Canada's Golgotha, by Derwent Wood, an obscure British artist, has provoked shock and anger since it was first displayed in 1919. At the time, Britain's Daily Mail called it "Canada's sternest memorial to her sons' suffering."
The display provoked an angry diplomatic exchange with Germany, which demanded details to back up the story.
Canadian and British officials tried to verify it, with little luck.
Did it happen, was it a propaganda tale or was it a trench myth?
The tale began after the Second Battle of Ypres. A story appeared in the Toronto Star on May 11, 1915, telling of a Canadian sergeant lashed to a tree by his arms and legs and bayoneted 60 times.
As is often the case, the story came second-hand from a witness who died in the arms of the story-teller.
"C. J. C. Clayton, a New Zealander who is serving with the British Red Cross and is now wounded, brings a message from Capt. R. A. Allen of the 5th Canadian Battalion, who comes from Vancouver and who died of wounds in a hospital in Boulogne May 2, confirming the horrible story of the crucifixion of a Canadian sergeant by the Germans," says the story, placelined Windermere.
Two problems: The Imperial War Graves Commission said Capt. Allen of the 5th Battalion died April 30, and the sergeant is not identified; Mr. Clayton lost his name. But the legend was born.
The same Star dispatch carries a paragraph from the Paris correspondent of the Morning Post. It says Canadian soldiers had been told of a sergeant who was nailed to a door with bayonets, then shot.
While the details were forever changing -- he was nailed to a tree, to a barn, to a house, he was tied with wire, with rope -- the saga of the Canadian sergeant became a standard in the catalogue of German atrocities.
In 1919, when Mr. Wood's sculpture went on display, it appeared to an observer that "the whole incident seemed to have acquired official approval."
The German Foreign Ministry was furious and dashed off angry notes to Ottawa and London demanding the allegations be proven or disowned. Efforts were made to track down the sergeant.
There were skeptics aplenty.
Ernest Chambers, Canada's press censor, wrote that he thought the story "had been invented in a certain sector of the state of New York . . . for recruiting purposes."
General Sir Arthur Currie, wartime commander of the Canadian Corps, didn't believe the story and wrote to prime minister Robert Borden to say so.
Two soldiers, one British, one a Canadian awarded the Victoria Cross, came forward with accounts that seemed to verify the crucifixion.
However, although they said they had seen the same incident, the two men were never closer together than three kilometres on the day in question, and one version put the atrocity thousands of metres from the nearest German penetration that day.
The official verdict was insufficient evidence. The allegation was "not proven."
Between the wars, British MP Arthur Ponsonby published Falsehood in War, in which he took aim at the crucifixion story: "Like so many other stories, this one includes considerable changes and variations. The crucified person was, at one time, a girl and at another an American, but most often a Canadian."
In May, 1930, Canada acted. H. W. Brown, deputy defence minister, wrote to the National Gallery of Canada about Canada's Golgotha. "As sufficient evidence has not been brought out to satisfy the department that such an event took place, it has been decided to withdraw from reproduction two 'official' photographs of the bronze group referred to.
"In taking this action, the department was influenced by the consideration that no official statement has ever been made by the Canadian government that a Canadian soldier was crucified by the Germans. . . ."
Crate the thing and put it in permanent storage, Mr. Brown said, "so that the government may be protected against the embarrassment of its being exhibited or photographed at any future time."
The piece sat in storage for more than 50 years. Eventually, the Defence Department, realizing that art criticism is beyond its jurisdiction, relented. Since then, Canada's Golgotha has been part of several exhibits, including one on religion put together by the Museum of Civilization.
But did the crucifixion happen?
British Historian Martin Gilbert: "Almost certainly untrue."
Canadian historian Desmond Morton: "It was a remarkably useful story. In a Christian age, a Hunnish enemy had proved capable of mocking Christ's agony on the cross . . . providing a means of transforming casual colonials into ruthless fighters."
But the story won't die. Every 10 years or so, someone delves into the archives, seeking to put a name to the victim. This spring, a national newspaper account quoted a newly surfaced letter from a British wartime nurse, seemingly pinpointing the incident and naming Sergeant Harry Band of the 48th Highlanders as the victim.
Sgt. Band, fingered before as a possible victim, is supposed to have died on April 24, 1915, and has no known grave. Sgt. Band's descendants in British Columbia spoke of dark hints when news of his death arrived in 1915.
There's a problem, though, with Sgt. Band. The War Graves Commission said the only Canadian soldier named Band who died in 1915 was killed on April 24. But he was a private from the 16th Regiment, not a sergeant from the 48th Highlanders.
So, the verdict of historians: Negative. The verdict of the Canadian government: Not proven.
The verdict of history? Perhaps there are more clues in dusty archives, forgotten drawers or unread diaries. And as long as Canada's Golgotha remains to fire the emotions, the legend likely will live on.